Benefits of air quality for human health resulting from climate change mitigation through dietary change and food loss prevention policy
In this study, we explored the impact of dietary changes on future air quality and human wellbeing. We also assessed the influence of dietary transformation policies in the context of climate change mitigation, with the objective of understanding how policies can effectively complement each other. We used a chemical transport model and an integrated assessment model to determine changes in fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone (O3) concentrations. Then, an exposure model was applied to estimate premature deaths as a consequence of air pollution. Our results showed that dietary changes could play a crucial role in mitig...
Source: Sustainability Science - April 22, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Limiting money: redesigning the artifact that shapes modern people
AbstractThe transdisciplinary argument in this article is that the social and ecological unsustainability of modern, globalized capitalism ultimately derives from the design of its central artifact: what Polanyi called all- or general-purpose money. The notion of a singular measure of economic value is a peculiar cultural conception that is inherently at odds with physical reality, yet it pervades modern economic thought and practice as if it were immutable. To transcend the political impasse of economic globalization, a complementary national currency (CC) exclusively for local use could distinguish a sphere of exchange a...
Source: Sustainability Science - April 18, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
How do we reinforce climate action?
AbstractHumanity has a shrinking window to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, yet climate action is still lacking on both individual and policy levels. We argue that this is because behavioral interventions have largely neglected the basic principles of operant conditioning as one set of tools to promote collective climate action. In this perspective, we propose an operant conditioning framework that uses rewards and punishments to shape transportation, food, waste, housing, and civic actions. This framework highlights the value of reinforcement in encouraging the switch to low-emission behavior, while also consi...
Source: Sustainability Science - April 11, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Mapping lock-ins and enabling environments for agri-food sustainability transitions in Europe
AbstractEuropean agri-food systems must overcome structural lock-ins to achieve more sustainable modes of production and consumption. Yet European regions are highly diverse, and we lack understanding of how different regional characteristics may enable or inhibit sustainability transitions. This hinders the development of context-tailored governance strategies. In this paper, we identify and apply sets of spatial indicators to map the regional potentials for agri-food transitions. We first analyse the strength of lock-in to the incumbent agro-industrial paradigm. We then map the enabling environments for two alternative a...
Source: Sustainability Science - April 8, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Climate-friendly healthcare: reducing the impacts of the healthcare sector on the world ’s climate
AbstractIf the global healthcare sector were a country, it would be the fifth-largest carbon emitter, also producing massive volumes of waste. A revolutionary transition to an environmentally sustainable model of healthcare is required. Decarbonisation efforts are initially focused on transitioning to renewable energy sources and improving energy efficiency in healthcare facilities (Scopes 1 and 2). One of the major challenges is to reduce the carbon intensity of the broader healthcare sector, especially operational and supply chain-related emissions, which represent 71% of the sector ’s worldwide emissions (Scope 3). Th...
Source: Sustainability Science - March 29, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Pampang Parikesit: front runner of sustainability science in Indonesia
(Source: Sustainability Science)
Source: Sustainability Science - March 29, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Designing solidarity cryptocurrency: a path to foster borderless local development
In this study, we draw on the concept oftecnologia social and the design ethnography of an in-the-making solidarity cryptocurrency to propose six design principles and sixteen corresponding strategies for implementing a solidarity cryptocurrency. These design principles provide an initial guide for practitioners and policymakers who seek to create initiatives to scale the socioenvironmental impact of community currencies. (Source: Sustainability Science)
Source: Sustainability Science - March 23, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
The ecor as global special purpose money: towards a green international monetary system to finance sustainable and just transformation
AbstractCountries from the Global South face significant challenges to finance sustainable and just transformation. These challenges primarily stem from the hierarchical character of the current international monetary system, which requires Global South countries to obtain US dollars to finance imports of green goods, services, and technologies that they cannot (yet) produce, but require for the sustainable transformation. To overcome this hurdle, we propose the foundation of a green international monetary system with a Green World Central Bank (GWCB) at its centre. The GWCB would be allowed to create its own unit of accou...
Source: Sustainability Science - March 21, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Why is the sky blue? A new question for political science
AbstractThe future of political science in this crucial century requires that it (i) adopt the contemporary scientific paradigm, (ii) open itself to pluri-, inter- and transdisciplinarity, and (iii) redefine the main political actor, ourselves, in light of post-anthropocentric and relational turns. A theoretical revolution to a post-normal and eco-political science is needed and, through the influence of new fields such as sustainability science, is probably already in motion. In the Anthropocene, it implies paying attention to biological links that once seemed extemporaneous. And this is when we realize that the sky has b...
Source: Sustainability Science - March 19, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Telecoupling lens for integrating ecological and human dimensions of the biological invasion problem
AbstractHuman activities that define the Anthropocene can lead to multi-faceted (social, ecological, economic) problems, such as biological invasions. Yet, interdisciplinary collaborations focused on understanding their causes and finding solutions remain relatively scarce. Telecoupling lens helps to conceptualize the biological invasions process (transport –introduction–establishment–invasion) across distal coupled human–nature systems. Using invasive non-native plants as an example, we explain how their invasion can alter either one or both of the sending (native) and receiving (invaded) systems. This occurs thro...
Source: Sustainability Science - March 18, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Towards true prices in food retailing: the value added tax as an instrument transforming agri-food systems
AbstractCurrent crises (i.e., climate crisis, COVID-19 pandemic, Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the resulting energy and food shortages) indicate the need for robust, and sustainable supply chains with regional food production and farmland to secure food supply in the European Union (EU). Recent research shows that organic food is more resilient to supply chain disruptions and price fluctuations. In this context, we examine an approach for the sustainable and resilient transformation of agri-food networks: can an adaptation of value added tax (VAT) levels work as a financial incentive to amplify resilient agricultural pr...
Source: Sustainability Science - March 15, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Understanding the embeddedness of individuals within the larger system to support energy transition
AbstractCO2 emissions need to be reduced drastically to fight climate change and minimise the further increase of average global temperatures. The decarbonisation of the energy system aims at reducing CO2 emissions and is thus urgently needed. This transition is facilitated by inter alia switching to renewable energy sources and more efficient technologies. In the past, the energy transition has mostly focused on supply-side measures. However, at least since the publication of the 6th IPCC assessment report, demand-side measures have gained attention. Thereby, the roles individuals play in achieving this transition is reco...
Source: Sustainability Science - March 13, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Empowering citizens for the energy transition: facilitating role change through real-world experiments
This study investigates the development of an empowering role change in the context of the real-world experiment “Your Balcony Network—Energy Creates Community”. The experiment serves as a case study to offer a better understanding of how real-world labs can support citizens toward an empowering role change that actively and positively affects the energy transition. In a mixed-method, longitudinal study, we first identify indicators of citizens’ role change in the energy transition and analyze their development in the course of the experiment’s first year. Second, we studied the role-changing process, identifying...
Source: Sustainability Science - March 10, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Beyond a checklist for acceptance: understanding the dynamic process of community acceptance
AbstractCommunity acceptance is considered a prerequisite for successful energy transitions and the uptake of renewable energy technologies (RET). While policy and research often focus on acceptance as an outcome, the process of acceptance remains a black box, especially in uncontested RET implementation contexts. We study the dynamic process of community acceptance where (1) different actor groups can have (2) different roles and (3) different active and passive responses towards (4) different objects of acceptance within the RET project implementation. Results show that community acceptance occurs over time and goes beyo...
Source: Sustainability Science - March 4, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Money and the ecological turn: lessons from alternative currencies
This article stylises them as bank credit, a-territoriality and non-specialisation of money, and commensurability. Yet, the variety of experiences of alternative currencies displays remarkable features like territorialisation, socio-economic specialisation of money, a practical criticism of commensurability, and non-bank funding and financing schemes. Considering those features seriously, and making them part of monetary systems, require adapting the existing monetary infrastructure by creating specific circuits through the establishment of boundaries. (Source: Sustainability Science)
Source: Sustainability Science - March 1, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
